LEGO Horizon Adventures Preview: Let's Do a Silly One

ign.com:

The very pitch of a LEGO Horizon game was always bound to be delightful. LEGO games have been historically well-regarded for their self-referential humor and family-friendly gameplay, and Horizon: Zero Dawn was a game of the year contender when it came out in 2017. With LEGO Horizon Adventures, it’s like someone at Guerrilla called everyone from Zero Dawn into the room, pointed at the game, said, “Hey, let’s do a silly one.” And then, when everyone agreed to this ridiculous idea, they proceeded to treat that silly one with the same level of craft and care with which they treated the other Horizon games.

LEGO in video game form has never looked so gorgeous, or felt so satisfying to tear apart. Aloy kicks up little footprints of LEGO dust as she walks. Barrels she shoots with her trusty bow burst apart into little LEGO bits. Cloth capes on NPCs are patterned with striking detail, while sunlight glitters off brick water and LEGO grass strands go up in translucent LEGO flames when hit with a fire arrow. Sure, it's cool that we can see the pores of Aloy's skin in Horizon: Forbidden West, but Horizon Adventures is a great reminder that interesting style choices - like making an entire world out of LEGO - can be visually stunning as well.

LEGO Horizon Adventures loosely - and I do mean loosely - follows the story of Zero Dawn, and lampoons it at every opportunity. For instance, you might remember Zero Dawn's intro involving a child Aloy finding her Focus in an Old World ruin. In Horizon Adventures, Rost just hands it to her in a cheerful mockery of its supposed rarity. Aloy, played by Ashly Burch in full goblin mode, revels in the self-aware script: she's obsessed with finding out who her mother is and convinced it will solve all her problems. You know, just like in Zero Dawn. The best part is, this character shift works, perhaps because Aloy never took herself too seriously to begin with. She and JB Blanc (Rost) are clearly having a great time with these lines, and I'm